So I got this great sounding recipe, but it only contains the ingredients, not the method. I am lucky that I don't have any problems putting it together by myself, there is only one thing I can't get my hands on really: Maple foam.

The recipe says it consists of milk, maple syrup, gelatine and vanilla beans.

I got all the ingredients, but before I tried anything I Googled, thinking that there is maybe another recipe already out there for this. I found some things, like a guide where the foam turns into a rock hard candy. I don't think this is what I want, as my recipe is for ricotta pancakes.

A bit discouraged I just tried to whip milk to get some kind of cream (yes yes I know about whipping cream ;-) ), add some maple syrup and gelatine. Of course this didn't work out really well.

Because the recipe also uses vanilla beans I thought about bringing the milk to the boil together with the vanilla beans, then adding maple syrup and adding gelatine and beating it until it's basically at room temperature. This also didn't really work, the problem is that it never gets really foamy. So I guess thats the problem an NO2 dispenser solves. But maybe there is another way of creating maple foam? Maybe I was even on the right track?

No, this recipe does not contain any foaming agents. It seems to be really a molecular gastronomy recipe meant for a NO2 dispenser. You could try other methods for foams flavored with maple, but not with these ingredients.
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rumtscho♦Jun 9 '12 at 0:45

Ha ha damn, and thats for a breakfast! Thank you, if I get nice results I will post them here.
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SvenJun 9 '12 at 13:58

Alright, I found this video: smallscreennetwork.com/video/jamie_boudreau_molecular_mixology2 There he does maple foam for a cocktail. The ingredients can be seen at 2:30. Later he says this recipe can be also done by hand, although he uses a N2O dispenser. Do you think it is safe to eat because of the eggwhite?
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SvenJun 9 '12 at 22:19

Many recipes use raw egg white. Not safe in the official sense, but most home cooks are ok with the amount of risk
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rumtscho♦Jun 29 '12 at 16:45

3 Answers
3

It's not exactly what people mean by culinary foam, but you can make maple whipped cream. (It seems kinda like the original recipe you found was trying to do this, except it forgot that you can't really make whipped milk.) There are a lot of recipes you can find for this online. They probably won't be as concentrated maple flavor as a more pure maple foam, so a couple thoughts:

You can always reduce the maple syrup, so that you can add more maple flavor without adding so much water that you destabilize the cream.

You could use manufacturing cream, which has even more fat than heavy cream, so it's more stable when whipped, and you'll be able to add more maple.

Somewhat more specific: this article on lecithin and foam suggests that you should use 0.3-0.8% lecithin by weight, and that you can whip it with an immersion blender. I'd assume that other stabilizers work as well.
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Jefromi♦Jul 18 '12 at 15:18

To be honest, I just added 1/2 tsp and it was fine when I've used it in the past. This was with about 400ml of liquid though.
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DaveJul 18 '12 at 15:18